Feedback wanted on server idea, SMP + towns and GriefPrevention

[john01dav]

Well, after trying to find a server that was fun to play on for me, I was very frustrated by the complete lack of any good servers (again, from my definition of "good server") that allow me to just join and play FTB without worrying about crazy rules or game-breaking restrictions that can only be removed by paying with real money. As such, I have decided that it may be best for me to attempt to provide such a server. But, before doing so -- especially as it requires money for hosting -- I would like to learn if anyone else, and if so how many, other people feel the same way. I would also like to know if anyone is willing to help contribute.

Here is the basic idea of what I want (for any that have multiple possibilities, please tell me which you would prefer):

1. SMP world with towny, griefprevention, and/or a custom towns plugin (I can develop this myself)
   
2. Mining world, or quarries allowed outside towns provided that the quarry's owner asks a staff member to reset the chunks when they are done
3. In-game economy
   
4. All donor perks are either actual donations (ie. no reward) or cosmetic only (ie. EULA compliant). I should note that I am not willing to break the EULA -- if not for threat of enforcement then to make the server more non-paying-user-friendly.
5. All towns are chunkloaded 24/7 along with quarries and possibly GP claims. I could also just make sure to enable ChickenChunks and/or another chunk loading mod with a fair budget of chunks to each player.
6. Map reset ~every 2 months to ensure that once people get everything in the game that it is possible to continue playing. I would really appreciate feedback on this point as a map reset does obviously have downsides, but the issue of players moving on to other servers because they grow bored of their current one is something that would preferably be solved.
7. Public server/no whitelist to ensure that anyone can join. If someone starts causing problems, they can be banned.

Please feel free to contribute any other ideas you have.

You could be wondering why I am qualified to start such a server, which is, of course, a very valid question. The reason is that I have developed many Bukkit/Spigot plugins so I have a good understanding of how Minecraft works internally. I also dabbled a bit in Forge development. I have also run many servers in the past. They all failed for various reasons (the first one because the host pulled some crap and basically locked the TPS at 5-10, the others because I made a few mistakes which I have now learned from (feel free to ask for details on this if you want)).

Also, as for the potential contributions, please let me know if you would be willing to either donate money before it starts in order to allow it to do so, or, if you are willing to donate money after it starts (ie. after I have proven that I am serious) for cosmetic-only perks (or no perks). If so, how much? Unfortunately, I have no idea how to prove that I am serious before the server starts. If anyone has any suggestions on that point, they would be very much appreciated. There are also other possible ways to contribute, such as building the spawn city, helping with the development of some plugins, .

A few more questions that I would like to learn what people think:

1. Which modpack? (I'm thinking either one of the FTB Infinities or Direwolf20 1.7.10)
2. Any possible names? I'm terrible at making names.

Thanks for reading this far, I look forward to your feedback if you have any.

 

[Techly88]

This would be indeed be an interesting rig.

1. Why don't we stick with like a tech mods theme and make the server be like a "High Tech" towns as we play on it?
2. Also you could consider letting people donate computing power/own hardware as well as accepting "pre/post" donations. Maybe for instance someone have credits somewhere that they really don't care about at the moment and/or have space on a dedi or something.

 

[john01dav]

Thanks for your interest!

Why don't we stick with like a tech mods theme and make the server be like a "High Tech" towns as we play on it?

I assume you are referring to the custom modpack route (please correct me if I'm wrong). This sounds like a great idea and is basically what I had in mind. The only issue I see is that it would probably be easier to get people to join if it uses a more popular modpack such as FTB Inifinity or Direwolf20. I'd prefer to stay away from the Technic Launcher because the community around it is quite honestly terrible. Also, I don't really see a downside to having some magic mods mixed in.

Also you could consider letting people donate computing power/own hardware as well as accepting "pre/post" donations. Maybe for instance someone have credits somewhere that they really don't care about at the moment and/or have space on a dedi or something.

If someone was able to give me ssh access to a dedi to install a webserver with php support + a Minecraft server that would be great. I just find that highly unlikely. Also, if it takes the form of "credits" somewhere I'd prefer to manage the entire VPS or dedi myself if the person would allow that -- just so that I can ensure it runs optimally. That is, of course, if it wasn't shared hosting which is fine as long as it has at least 1GB of ram. Although, I would only really need US$30-US$50 (US$10 for hosting, another US$10 for the domain, and another US$10 for web hosting, the las US$10 is for any sort of emergency or unforseen expense) to set it up optimally (of which I could contribute a significant amount). I could probably work with as low as $10 to have it run for one month and then rely further post-launch donations or my own money to keep it running after that.

 

[GreenZombie]

Two months for me is a very short amount of time. Most of my builds take far more time than that.

Having dabbled in adminning a server I can say that using a publically available modpack is far FAR more preferable if you want players.

Anything that is more complicated than "Download the FTB Launcher, install this pack, connect to this server" will filter out potential players.
In the industry we talk about the "funnel" because you can graph all the potential players, and then, each obstacle they need to bypass to use the software reduces the remaining players who are capable of getting that far. The result is tapered, like a funnel.

To get players to use your server, even with a define modpack, you still need players who can master:
1. downloading the proper launcher.
2. install the proper modpack. (They get moved around occasionally)
3. actually configure a server entry with the correct IP.
4. At this point firewalls and routing frequently sabotage things.

If - and when - the modpack is updated - you need to decide on how soon you update the server. Leave it too long and you will loose new players who will install the latest version and be unable to connect. Do it to soon and you may install an unstable update that corrupts the world, and annoys existing players who want to play but don't have the bandwidth for a quick update.

Creating a custom pack, or even customizing an existing pack, just adds to this list and further restricts the players who make it through.

If you want a (initially) popular server, I'd actually suggest the Technic launcher, with the Yogscast packs, as that's way more popular on youtube than any of the FTB pack lets plays.

 

[Techly88]

Two months for me is a very short amount of time. Most of my builds take far more time than that.

Having dabbled in adminning a server I can say that using a publically available modpack is far FAR more preferable if you want players.

Anything that is more complicated than "Download the FTB Launcher, install this pack, connect to this server" will filter out potential players.

I agrees with both aspects and even custom public packs are easier to get "approved" by FTB now that most of the mods give "open" permissions. Leaving you to get a select few "approval" from the authors.

 

[john01dav]

Two months for me is a very short amount of time. Most of my builds take far more time than that.

What would you recommend instead? The most successful server I tried in the past eventually lost every single one of it's players due to stagnation. It was, admittetly, Tekkit Lite which has significantly less content that current FTB packs.

If you want a (initially) popular server, I'd actually suggest the Technic launcher, with the Yogscast packs, as that's way more popular on youtube than any of the FTB pack lets plays.

What I'm looking for is something reasonably popular. I'm not trying to make the next Mineplex or anything like that. I would be satisfied with a community of total about 30 people, with about 5-10 on most of the time.

 

[Henry Link]

I'm not a big fan of public servers. But the most glaring thing that stares out at me is the 2 month server reset. I prefer to take a long time building. My current world is over 6 months and I still have work I want to do on it.

 

[john01dav]

I'm not a big fan of public servers. But the most glaring thing that stares out at me is the 2 month server reset. I prefer to take a long time building. My current world is over 6 months and I still have work I want to do on it.

Based on this and the other complaint, I think I should probably remove the reset. So, if I make this server it won't have a reset unless a real need presents itself (ie. everyone is leaving, map corruption, people want a new pack (this last one isn't to be done willy-nilly, and would mostly exist for new MC versions), etc.).

 

[john01dav]

I'll probably start configuring this server on my computer locally soon. Does anyone have any objections to it being based of the Direwolf20 1.7.10 pack?

 

[Techly88]

I'll probably start configuring this server on my computer locally soon. Does anyone have any objections to it being based of the Direwolf20 1.7.10 pack?

For a preconfigured pack it doesn't actually look half bad.

 

[pulli23]

Two months for me is a very short amount of time. Most of my builds take far more time than that.

Having dabbled in adminning a server I can say that using a publically available modpack is far FAR more preferable if you want players.

Anything that is more complicated than "Download the FTB Launcher, install this pack, connect to this server" will filter out potential players.
In the industry we talk about the "funnel" because you can graph all the potential players, and then, each obstacle they need to bypass to use the software reduces the remaining players who are capable of getting that far. The result is tapered, like a funnel.

I've never played on a server yet - but: Is there still no (ftb) launcher + server software that will actually download the pack while you connect to a server?

That's something 99% of all multiplayer sandbox games already have. Really, why is this not done in any of the launchers yet?


Actually this IS the reason I won't play a server: for me the default packs are kind of boring and I am only looking for special challenge packs/servers. For example I would love to play a pack/server that has tech mods, however only the multiblock/self-automated ones. Think like immersive engineering, steve's carts, botania (oh and please still add utility mods like tinker's construct/jabba/iron chests/nerfed extra utilities/projectred).

Yet having to find and download the custom modpack is just a pain. I wouldn't do that ever....

So why not download the pack while connecting - similar how other games download mods & maps during connection.

 

[GreenZombie]

I've never played on a server yet - but: Is there still no (ftb) launcher + server software that will actually download the pack while you connect to a server?

That's something 99% of all multiplayer sandbox games already have. Really, why is this not done in any of the launchers yet?


Actually this IS the reason I won't play a server: for me the default packs are kind of boring and I am only looking for special challenge packs/servers. For example I would love to play a pack/server that has tech mods, however only the multiblock/self-automated ones. Think like immersive engineering, steve's carts, botania (oh and please still add utility mods like tinker's construct/jabba/iron chests/nerfed extra utilities/projectred).

Yet having to find and download the custom modpack is just a pain. I wouldn't do that ever....

So why not download the pack while connecting - similar how other games download mods & maps during connection.

Because of the way minecraft works, and loads mods, blocks and configuration are setup when the minecraft menu is launched, and the player has to navigate from the menu to the server list. The Forge handshake does include the list of mods (but not download links), but at this point its too late - minecraft has already loaded.
You must, therefore, update the mods before launching minecraft. A "connect to server" wizard in the FTB Launcher would be a nice extension...

But here we run into the trouble with how mod authors have a tendency to give permissions to certain packs to distribute their mods automatically, but otherwise prefer the revenue stream from using ad-fly or some such to gate their downloads. As such, FTB has not really had a list of whitelisted mods, independent of any pack, that it can download.

Although with an increasing number of mods hosted on curseforge, and not behind an adwall, it seems concievable for the FTB launcher to connect to a server, get its list, and build the modpack on the fly.

However, that would still not work, as the remaining, important component, is the config. Most mods do not have a robust mechanisim to fetch config from a server when running against a server, so its very important that the client and server configurations for all the mods are kept synchronized. Which makes the idea of a launcher that can build modpacks on the fly technically somewhat infeasible.

A shame really, as I do agree in principal - having a launcher that can actually interrogate the minecraft forge server handshake, extract the list of mods and build a pack dynamically, would be very very nice.

 

[john01dav]

However, that would still not work, as the remaining, important component, is the config. Most mods do not have a robust mechanisim to fetch config from a server when running against a server, so its very important that the client and server configurations for all the mods are kept synchronized. Which makes the idea of a launcher that can build modpacks on the fly technically somewhat infeasible.

It would probably be fairly easy from a technical standpoint to create a program that listens on some specific port of the server that the FTB launcher can connect to. When someone enters an ip, the launcher connects to that port on the specified IP to fetch a URL to a zip file that contains a mods folder and a config folder along with a Forge version and a Minecraft version number. The launcher then builds this path and automatically adds the server's "real" ip (fetched from the alternative port) to the servers list file. The Technic launcher has something similar except where the modpack author needs to host the alternative port server on Technic's infrastructure.

 

[Nedrith]

I'll probably start configuring this server on my computer locally soon. Does anyone have any objections to it being based of the Direwolf20 1.7.10 pack?

My personal opinion on that pack is that no new servers should really be using it. As far as I'm aware that last update to the pack was done over a year ago and it hasn't been updated since. It's a great pack but as far as 1.7.10 packs goes it's badly outdated.

 

[john01dav]

My personal opinion on that pack is that no new servers should really be using it. As far as I'm aware that last update to the pack was done over a year ago and it hasn't been updated since. It's a great pack but as far as 1.7.10 packs goes it's badly outdated.

Would you recommend the Inifinity pack then? If not then what? For reasons I explained in previous posts to this thread, I'd strongly prefer to avoid any non-FTB or non-premade packs.

 

[Nedrith]

Infinity IMO is the best choice for a kitchen sink type pack. It's at least mostly up to date, at least as far as FTB team made packs goes and overall will have most of the mods that people would want.

 

[john01dav]

Infinity IMO is the best choice for a kitchen sink type pack. It's at least mostly up to date, at least as far as FTB team made packs goes and overall will have most of the mods that people would want.

All right, it seems mostly equavelant to the Direwolf20 pack with a few mods switched out. Personally, I do prefer the mods in Direwolf20, but, being up to date is probably more important for a server. As such, I'll use FTB Infinity as of now (if anyone else has any objections, please voice them as soon as possible so too much time isn't wasted on setting up a server for a different pack than will be used).

 

[thetacoranger06]

hey man i would be down to join your server and help in any way i can

 

[CamShirayuki]

I'd be interested as well. Seems like a cool concept and I like the idea of it. Just out of curiosity, what did you have in mind in terms of economy?